It's not too late to catch up with "The Big C" -- now if Showtime would just stop running its own spoilers!

The great Dr. Sherman finally made his appearance last week on Episode 2 of Season 2 -- what a shame the surprise was spoiled by the previous week's preview. Episode 3 airs tonight at 10:30pm ET/PT, and whenever else Showtime chooses to run it. (The "Doogie Howser" Dr. Sherman refers to is Cathy's first oncologist, Todd Mauer, played by Reid Scott, familiar to Our Boys fans as the incurably charming and incurably irresponsible Brendan.)

by Ken

One of these weeks I'll write properly about The Big C, but I wanted to get a few words down in advance of tonight's episode, the third of Season 2, in case there are any potential viewers out there who've been scared off by the idea of a half-hour comedy (well, it comes closer to being a comedy than anything else genre-wise). I recorded all of the first-season episodes, but somehow just couldn't bring myself to watch a show about, well, the Big C. But eventually thanks to the miracle of "On Demand," I buckled up and got with the program. And it's terrific.

Laura Linney has never had a better vehicle for her explosive talents, not to mention that irresistible personal appeal -- though I don't mean to suggest that Cathy is a pushover. In good health she was, well, well-programmed for orderliness in her life and that of her family' -- husband Paul (Oliver Platt) and typically bratty (or perhaps "of an age") Adam (Gabriel Basso), or her bipolar brother Sean (John Benjamin Hickey). "Prickly" might be a good word for her. And so it was perhaps not surprising that, confronted with Stage IV melanoma, she didn't even tell her family until . . . well, she didn't tell them, it kind of came out. And the person to whom she finally blurted it out was Sean's . . . um, the mother of Sean's unborn child, Cathy's old friend Rebecca (Cynthia Nixon).

But enough plot. If you're coming fresh to the show, there's some helpful background material on the show webpage. Here's their basic blurb about our heroine:

WHO IS CATHY JAMISON?

Conservative Minneapolis wife and mother Cathy Jamison let her freak flag fly when she got her cancer diagnosis. She also decided against treatment, at least until her loved ones learned the truth. But now she’s opting to face cancer head on. Her family and friends can have their problems, she’s got a life to live… and fight for.

Let me just complain now about the "coming attractions" preview following Episode 1. After the writers seemed to go to inordinate pains to avoid showing us the Great Cancer Doctor Cathy's trying so desperately to see, even showing her mistake a man who turns out to be a nurse for him, couldn't Showtime just have let us wait and see him when we're finally introduced?

Well, I suppose the thinking was that everybody already knew who the actor was. Well, I didn't. And I wasn't able to shut off the preview in time to avoid finding out, thereby spoiling the moment . . . well, the moment in the above clip.

Small gripe, though -- it's a special show.

I don't plan to watch this preview of tonight's episode of The Big C before actually watching the episode, but you can if you like.

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